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I am a theoretical physicist and currently Director of UCITE (University Center for Innovation in Teaching and Education) at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. I am the author of three books: God vs. Darwin: The War Between Evolution and Creationism in the Classroom (2009), The Achievement Gap in US education: Canaries in the Mine (2005), and Quest for Truth: Scientific Progress and Religious Beliefs (2000). Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog are my personal ones and are not those of UCITE or Case Western Reserve University. If you wish, you can send me an email by clicking here.

December 30, 2010

"But the Bible says…"

It is not only Christians who do this, though. I have heard Jews argue that their religion must be true because it is the only one in which god spoke to a huge number of people at the same time and thus they could not all be lying or deluded. Their source for this claim? The Old Testament.

I also had a discussion with two Mormon evangelists who came to my door. They claimed that the Book of Mormon must be true because it correctly predicted things. When I pointed out that the book was written after the events that it allegedly 'predicted', they disagreed saying that the book was written before the events but was discovered by Joseph Smith after. Their evidence? The Book of Mormon itself.

It is kind of amusing demonstration of how the desperate desire to believe can result in people abandoning their reasoning skills.

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Regarding the Jewish "logic", this is called the Kuzari principle.

The "logic" is that the Old Testament says so, and if the OT was wrong, Jewish ancestors would have said so. Since they don't, the OT must be right. This is slightly different than Prof. Singham's phrasing in his blog.

The degree of mental gymnastics associated with this fallacy can be illustrated with this nauseous post:

http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Kuzari_Principle_Intro.htm

But I've debated many Jews who think this is such sound "logic".

What's really funny is that the OT says the Jews made a golden calf following this "speech" (Exodus 32:4). The wording in Exodus & Leviticus, is such that God appears to only talk to Moses and tells him to "speak unto the children of Isreal". So it doesn't seem that the Jews heard God at all.